April 16-17, 2014

Sheraton Framingham Hotel & Conference Center

Framingham, MA

Keynote speakers:

Alan (Lanny) Berman, PhD, Executive Director of the American Association of Suicidology since 1995

Craig A. Miller, author of the book This is How it Feels, attempt survivor, and motivational speaker

Riverside Trauma Center's very own Jim McCauley, LICSW, and Joanna Bridger, LICSW, will be providing workshops. Jim will be facilitating the presentation "Hitting the Ground Running," which will involve members of the New Bedford Suicide Coalition discussing how suicide prevention activities were quickly implemented throughout the city after the suicide deaths of three young teens. Joanna will present "Understanding Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care," which provides information about the prevalence and impact of traumatic events and looks at why a focus on trauma is important. It discusses trauma-informed care and what it means to be trauma informed, how this differs from and overlaps with trauma treatment, and what providers can do to make their practices/policies more trauma informed. 

For more information and to register, please visit www.cvent.com. 

Riverside Trauma Center has been conducting an increasing number of trainings on "Understanding Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care" for a wide range of audiences, including schools, human service agencies, and the Massachusetts Department of Correction, just to name a few. Potentially traumatic events are common and there is mounting evidence that they are more common than most of us have realized. While we know that people often show striking resilience in the face of adversity, we also know that trauma can have a lasting impact on people in a broad range of ways. Trauma can affect every area of human functioning -- physical, mental, behavioral, social, and spiritual. In most cases, we will not know the full extent of what other people have experienced in regard to trauma.

Trauma-informed or trauma-sensitive care is often likened to universal precautions in health care. Universal precautions assume anyone may have a disease, and so we keep people safe by practicing sterile procedures with everybody. Similarly, if we start with the assumption that anyone may have experienced trauma, we can avoid doing further harm by treating everyone in a trauma-sensitive manner. Agencies, programs, and schools that have adopted a trauma-informed approach have found that not only the people who have been affected by trauma benefit from this practice, but everyone at every level of the organization also benefits.  

For example, in her article, "Why Schools Need to be Trauma-Informed,"¹ Barbara Ohlenburg talks about overall improvements in academic achievement and test scores, school climate, teacher sense of satisfaction and safety, and retention of new teachers using a trauma-informed approach to education. She also mentions that improvements in those schools involve reductions in student behavioral outbursts and referrals to the office; stress for staff and students; absences, detentions, and suspensions; student bullying and harassment; the need for special educational services/classes; and overall dropout rates. At the Baker Elementary School in Brockton, after two years of working towards becoming a trauma-informed school, office referrals were down 75% from baseline. Elizabeth Barry, the Executive Director of K-8 learning and teaching for the Brockton School District says, "That's the number I find most meaningful. When teachers are less inclined to send a child to the office, it speaks to their capacity and commitment to support all children socially, emotionally, behaviorally, and academically."² 

Riverside Trauma Center's Trauma-Informed Care training provides information about the prevalence and impact of traumatic events and explains why a focus on trauma is important. The training defines what it means to be trauma informed, how this differs from and overlaps with trauma treatment, as well as what providers can do to ensure their practices/policies are more trauma informed. Joanna Bridger, LICSW, Riverside Trauma Center's Clinical Services Director, will be presenting a session on trauma-informed care at the "13th Annual Massachusetts Suicide Prevention Conference" in April.